In network communication, a client often issues requests to a server for digital resources. The digital resource might have a bit rate associated with it. For instance, some media files or streams such as video and audio may have an associated bit rate at which the content was encoded. When the media is played at the client, the files are consumed at the encoded bit rate. Other digital resources may not have a bit rate associated with them such as, for example, executable files.
Conventionally, when a client requests a digital resource from a server, the server will issue a response at a rate that is appropriately as fast as the client is able to receive it, irrespective of any encoded bit rate associated with the digital resource. The download rate will thus depend on the bandwidth between the server and the particular client. Typically, this occurs even if the bit rate of the digital resource is much lower than the available bandwidth between the server and the client.